Mercoledì, 11 dicembre - ore 15:00 - Aula 3F (DEM)
Abstract
In response to the escalating frequency and severity of natural disasters, management scholars have investigated firms’ reactions characterized by philanthropy and local support. In this paper, we scrutinize whether firms alter their behavior to proactively contribute to mitigating the causes underlying the surge in natural disasters, by reducing their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity as a demonstration of their sense of responsibility in addressing global warming. We postulate that community logics prevailing where the firm is located—specifically, social norms and nature-centric cultural cognitive frameworks—accentuate their sense of responsibility post natural disasters. Focusing on 878 publicly listed US firms’ GHG emissions from 2006 to 2020, our findings indicate an unexpected immediate increase in firms’ GHG emissions’ intensity following natural disasters. However, as expected, firms in communities with stronger social capital and nature-centric cultural cognitive frameworks exhibit lower GHG emissions’ intensity in the years post disasters relative to firms in communities with low social capital or human-centric frameworks. The study answers recent calls to integrate firms’ (proactive) action with macro-phenomena such as climate change, expands research on firm actions post disaster, and contributes to research on community logics’ implications.